Ultra light weight 44 spec or 357 mag

L

lonegunman

New member
I am trying to decide which to get for concealed carry:

S&W 296 44 special or a J frame very light weight 357 mag.

Several questions:

1. how will recoil compare? In larger guns, I have always thought 44 spec was more pleasant to shoot.

2. is the 296 small enough to successfully conceal in the front pocket of pants?

3. can the 296 be had with a shrouded hammer, instead of internal?
 
I would stay with the 357 just because of ammo avalability. Usually the smaller caliber is also more concealable. Nothing wrong with 44cal. though.
 
well, I try to keep 44 special on hand, and have never thought it was hard to find anyway, so ammo availability is not an issue
 
I was thinking more along the lines of power/weight range than just ammo period. Around here 44 mag is easy to find but 44 spec. is a little scarce.

As for the recoil end of things I think the 44 special would be milder (look at your loading manuals, specifically the industry standard cpu allowed). I carry a 357 sp101 in stainless, it's most likely the heaviest snubbie out there, and it kicks pretty hard. I'm not sure I would want one that weighed any less, although if I shot 38 spec. it would be a whole new game.

One other thing. Have you given any thought to the durability of the really light gun digesting a constant diet of full power magnum loads?
 
I've got a lot of experience with x42s and some with the 296.

The 296 is more pleasant to shoot than a 342, but probably not more than a 642. I think it's size distributes the force over more of your hand -- and it weighs more than the ultra-light 342s.

The problem with the 296 is that it is, at least in my opinion, BIG for a pocket gun. I have never had pants with pockets big enough to conceal it. We are talking fanny pack or maybe bellyband or things like that.

The 296 is only fully-shrouded. The 396 is a fully-exposed hammer. No Bodyguard here. BTW, I believe that the 296 has been discontinued, although it's still listed in the catalog. It didn't sell well, according to people in Springfield.

Whether the 296 fills the bill depends on your requirements. For something like backpacking, where it might look good, you have to figure out where to carry it and deal with people issues, which will be different in, say, Wyoming than in eastern Pennsylvania or New York.
 
Thanks for the info... i thought a 296 might be a little too big for pocket carry.

As far as shooting full strenth 357's in a lightweight gun, I probably wouldnt do it much, if at all. I expect most practice would be done with 38s, or an all steel 357, and just load the lightweight with 357s for carry.
 
I kinda like the idea of practicing with the actual carry gun. That way no suprises if it is needed for real.

Course I'm not all that big on real light weight guns either. Been carryin for bout fifty years. Two of em a lot of that time.

Like somebody else said.....the carry gun should be comforting, not comfortable.

Sam
 
The problem here is that an S&W .44Spl five-shot will be the same frame size as a six or seven shot .357. The J-frame is just a hair too small to take .44 cylinder bores.

That's why there's a lot of interest in the Charter 2000 "Bulldog" .44Spl. The original Charter Arms version was excellent, and a lot of people swore by this gun - it's barely bigger than a J-frame, the current production examples weigh 22oz (SP101 is 27oz) and holds five .44Spls in a true "pocket package" with a 2.5" barrel.

Reports are starting to trickle in that the Charter 2000s may be the best incarnation of the design yet. See another thread on the subject in this forum, started by me and with the word "Quinn" in the title (if you're using search).

CorBon is loading a 165grain .44Spl pulling 1,150fps from a 4" tube, in the Bulldog it oughta still clear 1,000fps or come damned close. Especially once they do that projectile in PowerBall like they're promising, that load should work better than a lot of .357, especially in a short tube.

I wouldn't shoot huge amounts of those in a .22oz gun, but Winchester Silvertips are widely available and are milder, and there's a lot of sources for .44Spl "Cowboy loads" for SASS work that would be very pleasant for practice/plinking.

In short, if Charter 2000 really does have it's act together, we could have a new contender for "top CCW revolver".
 
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